In the 70,s , the Committee on the Present danger was set up to question the the CIA,s evaluation on the Soviet Union.

[ QUOTE ]

Although Richard Perle played no direct role in Team B, he was instrumental in setting it up. It was Perle who had introduced Richard Pipes, a Polish immigrant who taught Czarist Russian history at Harvard, to Sen. Henry Jackson, catapulting Pipes into a clique of fanatically anti-Soviet hawks. Pipes, who served as Team B’s chairman, later said he chose Wolfowitz as his principal Team B adviser “because Richard Perle recommended him so highly.” (5)

The Team B Report, released as an “October surprise” in an attempt to derail Jimmy Carter’s 1976 presidential bid, argued that “Soviet leaders are first and foremost offensively rather than defensively minded.” The team had arrived at this conclusion of Soviet intent from an assessment of the USSR’s capabilities, but they ignored evidence pointing to an opposite conclusion
But as Anne Hessing Cahn establishes in her history of the Team B affair, some of the CIA estimates critiqued by Team B were themselves exaggerations, particularly the estimates of Soviet military spending. “With the advantage of hindsight,” she explains, “we now know that Soviet military spending increases began to slow down precisely as Team B was writing about an ‘intense military buildup in nuclear as well as conventional forces of all sorts, not moderated either by the West’s self-imposed restraints or by the [Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT)]’.” “But even at the time of the affair,” continues Cahn, “Team B had at its disposal sufficient information to know that the Soviet Union was in severe decline. As Soviet defectors were telling us in anguished terms that the system was collapsing, [/b] Team B looked at the quantity but not the quality of missiles, tanks, and planes, at the quantity of Soviet men under arms, but not their morale, leadership, alcoholism, or training.” (5)

Right-wing ideologues and militarists frequently cite the example of Team B as a successful model for challenging moderate threat assessments by the foreign policy establishment, particularly the CIA and the State Department. In prevailing over the CIA, Team B demonstrated that “strategic intelligence” based on a policy-driven analysis of an adversary’s perceived intentions could triumph over fact-based intelligence. Through adroit organizing by hawks inside and outside of government, the Team B effort helped re-launch the cold war <hr /></blockquote>

Hondo, never mind Wally. He probably thinks his reply was both witty and intelligent

People like W dont think, they believe. Facts only get in the way of their lop-sided conclusions. When presented with facts that contradict these beliefs, instead of debating the point[ which they cant] they tend to attack the person. This is commonly known as the 'shoot the messenger'syndrom. A tactic which this admin uses frequently.

[ QUOTE ]
In prevailing over the CIA, Team B demonstrated that “strategic intelligence” based on a policy-driven analysis of an adversary’s perceived intentions could triumph over fact-based intelligence. <hr /></blockquote>

This is the crux of the article. It gives credence to the accusation that the war on Iraq was not about WMD,s but was idealogically driven.
I,m sure I,m not alone when I say this scenario bears an UNCANNY resemblance to the whole Iraq intelligence dabacle. Especially when the SAME players are involved.
Everybody in the US has asked themselves,'after all the billions that the US has spent over the years, how could they [ the CIA etc] have got it so wrong on the WMD,s etc?'

Its a good question.

To date , nobody have given a detailed answer apart from 'group think'.

Q

eg8r

10-21-2004, 01:56 PM

Hey Q, what article did you get this from?

eg8r

Qtec

10-21-2004, 02:29 PM

hi eg8r. i was watching a docu the other night and i saw an old tv clip of Rumsfeld in 72 making almost the same speech as he did a year ago, so I decided to do a google on Team B.

WASHINGTON -- A small Pentagon unit set up after Sept. 11, 2001, to review raw intelligence later exaggerated the relationship between Al Qaeda and Iraq, leading White House officials to make overblown or inaccurate comments in the run-up to the Iraq war, according to the Democratic staff of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The staff's report, based on a 15-month investigation and released yesterday by Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the committee's top Democrat, accused the office of Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith of compiling "selective reinterpretations of intelligence" that went beyond the views of American spy agencies in order to help make the case for an invasion of Iraq.

The 46-page report concluded that Feith and his staff were convinced that a significant relationship existed between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, and that the office had advanced that perspective by trying to change the intelligence community's views and "by taking its interpretation straight to policymakers."

For example, the office repeatedly asserted in the months leading up to the war in Iraq that lead hijacker Mohammed Atta had met with an Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague in the spring before the Sept. 11 attacks, an account that the CIA dismissed because evidence existed that Atta was elsewhere at the time

Meanwhile, Pentagon briefing slides said Iraq had "more than a decade of numerous contacts" with Al Qaeda, there were "multiple areas of cooperation," and there was "shared interest in" <font color="blue"> You could say that the NRA and Hamas have a 'shared interest' in guns! </font color> weapons of mass destruction, the Levin report said.

Yet the intelligence community disagreed about the extent of those contacts, which were based on "reporting of dubious quality or reliability," according to Levin's findings. "Unbeknownst to the [intelligence community,] policymakers were getting information that was inconsistent with, and thus undermined, the professional judgments of the . . . experts," according to the Democratic investigation. "These changes conveyed a perception that the US had firm evidence of a relationship between the Hussein regime and Al Qaeda when it did not."

In addition to Cheney's repeated references to the Prague meeting, President Bush said on May 1, 2003, that Iraq was an "ally" of Al Qaeda, and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice later said Iraq had provided training in weapons of mass destruction to Al Qaeda.

The Levin report states that there are no known intelligence reports, other than those provided by Feith's office, that could explain where these views originated.

"A pattern emerges of senior administration officials exaggerating the extent of the relationship in public statements which more closely reflect the Feith analysis" than those of the intelligence community, it said. "The professional objectivity and independence required in the assessment of the Iraq-Al Qaeda relationship, a major reason given for going to war, were compromised to support a predetermined policy -- to present the government of Saddam Hussein as a serious threat to the security of the United States."